The Affection Verification
by NinjaNovelist
Summary: When given Pasadena's Favorite Power Couple, can you confirm the proposed hypothesis that they are the perfect match? The answer, of course, is yes. A missing moments series, taking place over the course of Season 7.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Big Bang Theory or any of the characters in it.**

After yet another successful Date Night- consisting of dinner at one of Sheldon's pre-approved Italian restaurants and returning to her apartment to watch the newly released special-special edition of _Star Trek: The Next Generation_- Amy internally prepared herself for her least favorite part of their monthly routine, when Sheldon announces his decision to leave. More often than not (_or always_, her mind unhelpfully supplies) she wished she could extend the invitation so her boyfriend could spend the night with her, without fear of him using some sort of Kolinahr-mind-trick-type-thing to try and banish the thought from her head forever. But like everything involving Sheldon, she would have to be patient.

To her surprise, however, instead of rising to gather his things Sheldon remained rooted to the seat he had designated as "his spot", appearing to be contemplating something. He seemed almost… anxious.

"Something on your mind, Sheldon?" Amy goaded gently as she sat on her couch, tea in hand.

Sheldon's eyes darted to Amy's ever so briefly before skittering away to focus on something else. For a long minute he said nothing, but Amy had learned long ago to wait for him to speak up, in his own time.

At last Sheldon turned in his seat to face her fully, all business. "I would like to extend to you an offer."

"Yes?" Amy encouraged, followed by a sip from her mug.

Sheldon ran his lips over one another, thinking of how to proceed. With any other man, Amy could relent to the almost magnetic pull of those tantalizing pink lips and kiss his worries away. But of course, Sheldon is not any other man- he is exceedingly evolved _homo novus_.

Amy again raised the mug to her lips to muffle a snort.

Sheldon was still choosing his words, and just as Amy thought he was going to forgo the entire thing, he opened his mouth to speak.

"I would like to request, if you would be a willing participant, that you help me conduct an experiment in which the test subject, in this case, you, positions him or herself in an upright position, meaning that the upper half remains exactly perpendicular to the ground, and produces onto his or her countenance a contrived expression of gaiety as a _completely_ impartial administrator generates an inanimate, pixilated facsimile of said test subject with a cellular device."

Amy took a long moment to scrutinize the face of her boyfriend closely as she pieced together what he had just said.

"So… you want me to sit up straight and smile while you take a picture with your phone?"

"For an experiment," Sheldon repeated quickly.

Even as he keeps his gaze averted, her own puzzled frown never left his face. "May I make an inquiry regarding the nature and purpose of this experiment?"

Sheldon sat stock-still, save for one barely perceivable gulp. "That is classified information. Your knowledge may skew the results of this study. This very valid, scientific study." He drummed his fingers against the arm of the couch. "For science."

Amy looked at him for just a second longer before finally relenting. "Uh… I guess."

Relief evident on his face, Sheldon fished his iPhone from his pocket while Amy straightened up and awkwardly ran a hand over her hair. The camera was poised and ready to roll, but Sheldon still hesitated.

"One moment," he said as he set the phone down on the coffee table and scooted closer. His hands fluttered uselessly for a bit before timidly settling on the hem of her blue cardigan to smooth it out. Her breath snagged in her throat, but Sheldon failed to notice as he moved to her arms, even licked the pad of his thumb to carefully wipe away a spot of excess tomato sauce on the corner of her mouth. The last thing he did was take off her glasses with his own two hands and wipe the lenses with his Batman t-shirt. Just as he was sliding them back onto her nose, he finally caught her eye as she stared at him open-mouthed.

Those damn lips were back in action as he licked them again, barely inches from her own. "Removing all variables."

In nanoseconds he was back in his spot, quickly rubbing sanitizer on his hands before taking hold of the camera once again. "Now say 'Physics!'"

Ordinarily Amy would have rolled her eyes at his continual insistence in asserting his field of study as dominant over hers, but her brain was still hyper-focused on every point of her body that her germaphobe of a boyfriend had touched. She stretched her lips into a smile that even she knew must look painfully awkward and repeated the phrase.

As soon as the flash of his phone had receded, Sheldon grabbed his bag and with a rushed "ThankyouAmygoodnight" he was out the door.

On her part, Amy remained frozen in place, attempting to make sense of what had just occurred. Then one long, exasperated sigh finally propelled Amy from her seat as she picked up her now cold tea and went to the kitchen to reheat it.

Dismissing his behavior as one of his many bouts of genius insanity that even she could never begin to understand, Amy never gave that night a second thought. That is, until one Christmas nearly two years later, when she was brought to attention the screensaver of a certain brilliantly quirky physicist. Now at last she had answers regarding the purpose of his impromptu experiment.

That single photo definitively proved, without an iota of doubt, just how much one Sheldon Lee Cooper cares for his girlfriend.

**First TBBT fic! I'm hoping to continue this before the premiere hits, but I've just started college so we'll see (and for those of you waiting on my DW story, if there's any left, I'm sosososososo sorry. Writer's block is a bitch). Enjoy!**


	2. Chapter 2

"_My baby's crying on a Saturday night._"

"_She thinks that nothin's ever gonna go right._"

"_But she'll make it…_"

"_And we'll make it…_"

"_There's no way that I'm leavin' the best part of meeeeeeeeeeeeee._"

Amy and Howard finished the last line together, giggling and stumbling and maybe just a teeny bit drunk as Howard walked her back to her apartment, one successful night of Neil Diamond later.

"Man, weren't our seats just killer?" Howard exclaimed, voice a few pitches higher than normal.

"As sweet as Caroline," Amy said, and they both doubled over laughing at her play on words. "We were close enough to feel the spittle launched from Neil's sublingual glands as he sang his melodiously timeless classics."

Howard sniffled. "That's beautiful, Amy."

He tripped just as they reached the third floor landing, and Amy just managed to catch him before he went sprawling to the ground. Once she straightened up with him in her arms she made to let go, but instead Howard grabbed her wrist and swung her around, bringing her back to begin an impromptu, albeit clumsy, slow dance.

"_There was a time I wanted out on my own_," he sang, loud and horribly off-key, but Amy just giggled as he paraded her through the hall. "_I even thought that I'd be okay alone. But oh, baby, I know baby…_"

"Even with only a Masters, I would've thought that you'd be aware that Amy is far past the infantile stage of her life."

Like a bucket of ice water on her head, the newcomer's words instantly sobered Amy from the hazy contentment the night had brought her. She released Howard and turned to look upon the great Dr. Sheldon Cooper, huddled against her door like an impatient puppy awaiting his owner.

Amy let out a steadying breath through her nose. "What are you doing here, Sheldon?"

"Well since you made it clear last time that if I ever picked the lock to your apartment again you would 'have your landlord kick my patootie out faster than my precious Flash could run to Disney World and back- which by the way is impossible, as the Flash is clearly quicker than any mere mortal, landlord or otherwise- I chose instead to wait outside your door so I could catch you in the very act of your adulterous hanky-panky."

"Sheldon, I'm married," Howard protested.

"And the only reason I'm going to refrain from 'wiping the floor' with your small Jewish body is that I know that the grievances you will suffer at the hands of your implike wife will be sufficient punishment," Sheldon shot back, arms folded.

Howard looked pleadingly to Amy, who sighed and gave him a small nod. "Goodnight, Howard. I had a lovely time."

"I'm sure you did," Sheldon muttered, earning him glares from both the other people in the conversation.

Howard patted her shoulder awkwardly. "See you around, Amy." And with one last look that was clearly wishing her luck, he walked off.

Amy waited calmly until the moment Howard had rounded the corner, then unlocking her door and wrenching it open, she shoved Sheldon inside.

"What the hell was that all about?" she demanded as she shut the door.

"What do you think it was?" Sheldon replied. "It was an intervention to prevent you from giving in to your inebriated state coupled with a hormone-induced sex drive and sully yourself with a man of inferior intellect."

"Sheldon…"

"I had called you no less than six times this evening, none of which you had answered," Sheldon said, nearing hysteria. "At the same time, Wolowitz failed to show up for Vintage Video Game Night, immediately arousing my suspicions. So after cleverly manipulating a young blonde across the hall whose name will be kept hidden-"

"You mean Penny?" Amy asked impatiently.

"Now now, I hinted nothing of the sort," Sheldon objected. "Either way, I discovered your secret plans with your little male concubine and immediately set out to rectify the situation."

"You see, this is exactly why I didn't tell you," Amy told him. "You always overreact like this. My 'secret plans' were to go see a concert with a _friend_. Nothing more."

But Sheldon, as expected, was unimpressed. "Oh really? Then what was that poorly executed Viennese Waltz I was forced to witness in the hall?"

"A platonic expression of affection after a night spent bonding over a mutual interest," she nearly shouted at him. "Because that's what people do when they care about someone, they show it _willingly_, spontaneously, without feeling obligated by some contract, by-"

The words died on her lips when Sheldon strode across the room, one hand taking hers and the other winding around to the small of her back, pulling her into him.

Wide, confused green eyes met blue, and Sheldon huffed. "Good lord, life would be so much easier to live if everyone had eidetic memories. You recall me telling you once that I am proficient in the rumba, waltz, and cha-cha?"

Brain overridden by her boyfriend's rare proximity, Amy had just enough mental capacity to nod.

"Yes, well…" as if suddenly realizing just what he had gotten himself into, he gulped nervously but did not back away. "I'm simply proving a point."

And lifting their joined hands to the proper waltzing position, Sheldon began leading Amy around her apartment to a beat only he was aware of.

Flashbacking to that night long ago when he had first danced with her, Amy was reminded yet again of how multi-talented her boyfriend truly was. He swept her along with ease, just as before, but she couldn't help but notice how things had changed since their days of boy/friend/girl/friends. The mere inches of space between them, his thumb unconsciously stroking her back, his searing gaze never leaving hers once…

"I'm sorry," Amy blurted out. "I should have told you where I would be tonight."

She instantly berated herself for giving in so easily to those big blue eyes, like she always did. Sheldon's feet slowed, now simply shuffling in place as he continued to look down at her.

"No," he said softly, that one word shocking her even more than the dancing. "You're my girlfriend. I'm supposed to trust you and… I'm sorry that I didn't."

Amy's felt like her heart was melted into a puddle at her feet. "I forgive you."

She tried to let go, assuming that with his point made that was what he would want. But instead Sheldon gripped her the tiniest bit tighter and began to move again.

And as he swiftly twirled her in a circle only to return her even closer than before- barely a hair's width from touching- the Neil Diamond song Amy and Howard had been singing before suddenly sprung to the forefront of her mind:

_You are the best part of me, _

_The best that I am or ever will be._

_You, baby, you're the part that allows me _

_To open my heart and let love inside._

_I want you to know, what I've always known…_

_You're the best part of me._

That one night of waltzing and romance definitively proved, without an iota of doubt, that one Amy Farrah Fowler brings out the very best in Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper.

**Song is (obviously) one of Neil Diamond's, "You are the Best Part of Me." **


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry for the late update, but… yeah. Enjoy.**

Even hours after, his lips still tingled.

This was a fact that baffled even him, and Sheldon Cooper was rarely baffled. He thought he knew everything there was to know about kissing, all the muscles used and chemicals released during the act, but he had staunchly believed and even prided in the fact that he was far too evolved for something as primitive and simplistic as _that_.

Boy, was he wrong.

Sheldon Cooper was wrong. An event for the history books.

But he cannot deny it as he sits in the bed-and-breakfast lounge with a nine-fingered, banjo-playing conductor, a rather uncomfortable-looking Howard and Bernadette, and… Amy Farrah Fowler.

More specifically, Amy Farrah Fowler's lips.

He was breathing the same air as a real life train conductor with even the same pocket watch as he, and all Sheldon could think of was that if he turned his head eighty-two degrees to the left and dipped it at a diagonal slope of 10.4 inches, he could kiss her again.

He had just been trying to prove a point, he swears it. Though what exactly he had been trying to prove, he still wasn't entirely sure. All he knew was that he had boldly gone where no Homo Novus had gone before.

The moment he had taken that step forward to deepen the kiss, he had felt all his inhibitions on physical affection burn away, abandon him like smoke in the wind, if only for a moment. But what was he without his fears? Without them, chaos would reign, overthrowing the order he had so painstakingly constructed around every aspect of his life. His mother had always preached at him to avoid the fiery pits of hell at all costs. This was his hell.

When the conductor had plucked his final note and called it a night, Sheldon rose to his feet as though in a trance and followed Amy's lead to their rooms. Howard and Bernadette wasted no time in scurrying ahead to their own, grumbling to one another in not-so-lowered voices.

"Last time we take a trip with Sheldon. Ever."

"Agreed." Howard leaned in closer to his wife, positively leering. "I think that after all we've been through tonight, we both deserve a little _alone time_."

Deserve.

_I deserve romance, and I… didn't know how else to make it happen._

That was it. That was why he had kissed her, all because of that one little word. In that moment he realized just how much Amy had changed these four years, no longer the pragmatic, sensible woman with a disdain for romantic affection. No longer like him. But that was what she really deserved, if only she could see it: a relationship purely of the intellect that was above all such damaging notions of feelings and love.

So that was why he had decided to give her what she thought she deserved, to show her that she deserves so much more.

"Sheldon?"

His head snapped downward to meet her gaze, realizing that she had halted in front of their separate rooms. He hadn't even noticed that they had arrived. "Is everything okay?"

He knew what she was really asking, though. _Are you okay? Are we okay?_

Well, was he?

He inhaled deeply, and on the exhale he found that he was smiling. Fascinating. "I'm fine, Amy, truly. Tonight was… very nice."

She smiled shyly at him in return. "Good."

She took a step closer, the closer proximity making her tilt her head to meet his eyes. Sheldon felt his breath quicken and heart race, just like earlier on the train. This new emotion was not unlike the fear that had been his closest companion since birth, but coupled with an inexplicable thrill of excitement, running from head to toe.

Just as he thought his ribcage would explode from the duel force of anxiety and anticipation, Amy broke the tension by standing on tip-toe and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. "Good night, Sheldon."

And all at once everything went still. His heart calmed, his breathing evened, and for one shining moment his mind ceased the incessant whirlwind of thoughts and equations and information that plagues someone like him. Replacing all that was a sudden warmth that kindled in the pit of his stomach and rose all the way to his face.

She was gone before his brain could formulate a reply, leaving him out in the hall alone. Sheldon lifted a hand to his face, hovering over the exact spot where her lips had made contact yet not quite daring to touch. No tears, no panic attacks, no racing to disinfect himself. Nothing but a simmering heat within that he knew needed only a spark more to grow into a roaring inferno, slowly consuming his all in the best way possible.

Well if this was hell, he'd throw himself onto the pyre headfirst.

His mind made up, Sheldon resolutely turned on his heel and marched into his room, heading straight for the laptop in his desk. Upon retrieval, he sat himself down and pulled up the runner-up to the most important document in the history of mankind, second only to the Roommate Agreement and narrowly superseding the American Constitution.

**The Relationship Agreement**

**A binding covenant that enumerates, iterates, and codifies the rights and responsibilities of Sheldon Lee Cooper, here and after known as "The Boyfriend", and Amy Farrah Fowler, here and after known as "The Girlfriend."**

In light of his newfound disregard for order, Sheldon skipped ahead and went straight to the point of interest.

**Section Six: Kissing**

He had work to do.

That action alone definitively proved, without an iota of doubt, that the great Sheldon Cooper had found hell, and was loving every minute of it.


End file.
